Comments on: BTT: Book Storage

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 11 May 2009 04:43:20 +0000

I’ve reorganized my books many times over the years. I now have them organized according to the Dewey Decimal System. This may be a bit much, I know, but it’s what has worked out the best for me. It’s solved the problem of having books all over the place, strewn about randomly.

By: MLO

MLO — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 19:02:10 +0000

Combining my husband’s and my books – while continuing to receive boxes – yes boxes, plural – of (good) books from various sources, I am constantly struggling with this. You’d think being a librarian would help!

I am slowly organizing things – very slowly. I have the added issue of all the non-print media we have collected as well. Someday I might get all of it done. Maybe.

All this to admit I admire your ability to keep it all organized.

By: Christine

Christine — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 13:59:13 +0000

Emily, if you like keeping track of things that way, you'd probably love LibraryThing!

By: Emily

Emily — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 03:58:33 +0000

I'm not OCD (obsessive-compulsive), but if you read this you might wonder...All my fiction is alphabetical order by author, my nonfiction is sorted by height. What's OCD is the fact that all of the books on my book shelf have been entered into a Microsoft Excel database on my computer, with title, author, genre, rating, and notes. Further, every book I read is noted with title, author, date, pages, rating, and a short teaser/synopsis. It's crazy, I know, but it's so interesting looking back at everything I've read. And the DB is a great help when I'm reshelving. Speaking of which, I have three colums of recent purchases crowding my desk, I may have to reorganize soon... Emily’s latest blog post:Hush (An Irish Princess's Tale)

By: Melanie

Melanie — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 02:06:28 +0000

Samuel Pepys organized his library by height too. As for myself, I am so right brained that I just put things on shelves as I get them and I remember where they are in a "second shelf beside the window by the red candle"way. So you see the difficulties in having anyone else at all move any of my books! Melanie’s latest blog post:Kate's Food & Fiction Meme

By: zibilee

zibilee — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 02:18:51 +0000

Your shelves look a lot like mine. I just kind of put everything everywhere right now, but am thinking of doing some reorganizing pretty soon. I think I am going to go alphabetically. zibilee’s latest blog post:The Weight of A Mustard Seed: An Iraqi General's Moral Journey During the Time of Saddam by Wendell Steavenson - 288 pgs

By: cybele

cybele — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 14:19:19 +0000

There’s a multi-level system at work in our house, driven by my husband’s logic that says all fiction should be organized by author. I find this hard to do so I have special spots for favorite authors (at eye level and in groups) and favorite literary genres, which translates to special pockets for Jane Austen, Willa Cather, George Eliot, Marcel Proust, A. Trollope, Colette, Henry James and a couple of others, and then for Japanese literature, Russian Lit. and African lit. And…as far as “reference” works go, there are categories for Auto/bio/graphy, Literary Criticism, Art History/criticism, History in general, Dictionaries in many languages, Fairy tales/mythology, Music theory/criticism/biography, ditto Theatre, Poetry, and Philosophy. The multi-dimensional structure both annoys and amuses my husband, but the rest (and actually there’s quite a lot of “rest”) is filed alphabetically.
We purge regularly, btw, and still have thousands of volumes. But at least we’ve eliminated the duplicates and we’re getting rid of the books bought in airports just before a long flight.

By: glumpuddle

glumpuddle — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 12:24:51 +0000

Actually, now that I think about it, its less by genre than by subject matter. And there’s one completely random shelf in my kitchen which is “fun reading.” So maybe I don’t organize by genre but by categories that I make up. I’m not sure anyone else would understand my system, so calling the categories “genre” might be a stretch.

By: glumpuddle

glumpuddle — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 12:22:14 +0000

By genre, then within genre by height/depth. It is difficult to integrate new books into a system unless you leave space. I’ve often had organized shelves, then a “recently purchased and read” bookcase which isn’t integrated into the collection until I move – which is when i re-organize because everything is off the shelves anyhow.
Currently, I don’t have enough shelf-space. I’m hoping for a job with an office soon… and since I’m an academic, that’s where some of my books will go.

By: Christine

Christine — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 04:23:40 +0000

Eva — by colour! I’ve done it by height — which, I wonder, is the crazier?